


can you come down with us

by bluewalk



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewalk/pseuds/bluewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday fic for <a href="http://weissofthecorax.tumblr.com">weissofthecorax</a>, who gave the prompt "don't touch me!" + Luffy/Nami</p><p>Set pre-Sabaody because I like to skirt the edges of doom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can you come down with us

Sometimes Nami is bitter. Especially in the beginning, Nami was bitter all the time, and Nami is bitter in the way that mikan peels are bitter, in the way that makes you want to swipe your tongue across the top of your teeth and grimace and pout and try again, all at the same time. Luffy doesn’t have the words to explain bitterness, rarely has the words for anything, but he understands that when Nami crosses her arms across her chest—like that—it means that she wants Luffy to stop being loud and for Luffy to sit down.

Sit, and that’s it. This is hard for Luffy because Luffy likes to be doing things, likes to be smashing things and running and singing. He’s not good at talking but words don’t matter when you sing, because it’s the singing that’s important, making noise, being as loud as you want.

Luffy thinks that Nami has all the right in the world to be bitter, after everything she’s lost and all those long years alone, after ink on skin and broken promises behind shark teeth, but he can’t imagine it to be much fun. And when Nami is bitter (less often now, but still sometimes), Luffy just wants to be loud for her, scare away the bad feelings, swipe his tongue across the top of his teeth, try again, but Nami doesn’t want Luffy to sing. She doesn’t want the noise. Luffy doesn’t see what the problem with noise is, since Nami is not working on her maps. Nami is just sitting there being bitter, and bitter is Nami’s version of sad, all mixed up with anger, because nothing about Nami is ever just is.

And when Luffy tries to touch the tattoo on her arm, new ink over scar tissue, she slaps his hand.

He doesn’t have very many words, so he whines, “Nami!"

"It’s not that easy," she says, and she always says this, all the time, and Luffy can’t understand what that means, what  _it_ is, exactly, and why it isn’t easy, why it is so difficult for Nami, who is one of the smartest people he knows.

"What’s not?" he asks, reaching out to touch and getting his hand whacked, again.

"Being happy all the time. Sometimes you just can’t."

"Oh. I know that," he says.

She looks at him and she looks surprised. “You do?"

He rolls his eyes. “Duh. It’s hard work being happy, Nami."

She doesn’t say anything for a long time. She doesn’t look away from him either. When she finally speaks, her voice catches on the words, trembles. “What do you mean? Aren’t you happy?"

She sounds afraid.

"I am," he says. “Of course I am."

Nami takes his hand, presses it between hers, urgent. “No. No, Luffy, if you’re not—"

"I am," he says. “I  _am_. Jeez, don’t you listen?"

"Then why do you say that? That it’s hard?"

He takes his hand back and sits on it, drumming his heels against the grassy deck, unable to keep still. “Because it is. Doesn’t mean I’m not. Just means it’s hard. I thought you knew."

"I do," says Nami, her voice so feather-soft it must tickle the back of her throat. (Luffy wants to laugh—tickle is a funny word, tickling is fun.) “We all do. But you’re different, Luffy. You’re not like everyone else."

"I’m not," he agrees, grinning at her. “I’m better, aren’t I?"

"Yes." Nami smiles back at him, a small, hesitant smile that’s definitely not her best and that frustrates Luffy. “But tell me—you get sad too?"

"No, not anymore." He pulls at her cheeks, trying to stretch her smile into one he likes better, but she swats him away.

"But you used to?"

"Yeah. Before I met you and everyone else, I used to get sad all the time."

He wants to say, you were bitter-sad too, Nami, and so was Zoro and Usopp and Sanji, everyone, Chopper too, and Robin, Franky, Brook. They were all sad and that’s why they found each other and that was a good thing and now they shouldn’t be sad anymore.

Luffy watches Nami move closer to him, until their shoulders are touching.

She nudges him gently. “Why was that?" she asks.

"I was lonely." He shrugs and Nami’s shoulder slides against his, smooth and warm. It wasn’t a big deal. Luffy remembers that Sabo was lonely too, before he went away, and after that, Ace got sad, which made Makino and Dadan sad. So it wasn’t a big deal that Luffy was sad and lonely—sadder and lonelier after Ace left—if everyone around him was too. Besides, it’s all behind him now. He doesn’t like talking about it, doesn’t like dwelling when he could be sailing forward instead, so he says, “But now I have you guys."

Nami is quiet and Luffy is getting bored. From the upper deck, he hears Usopp and Chopper laugh. He drums his heels faster and louder, until Nami puts a hand on his knee to still him. “Are we difficult?" she asks him.

He doesn’t get it. “Huh?"

"You said it’s hard work being happy, even though you have us now. Is it because we’re difficult?"

"No," he says, frowning. “That doesn’t make any sense, Nami. Stupid."

She makes an annoyed sound and punches the back of his head, hard. “You’re the last person I want to hear that from," she growls. Then, again, “Are we difficult? Are we not what you want? Is that why you’re unhappy?"

"Don’t say that! I’m not unhappy!"

"But why is it so hard," Nami snaps at him. She sounds mad suddenly, dark and crackly like an oncoming storm, and Luffy’s pulse jumps in answer, even though he can feel it’s not really him she’s mad at. “Why do you say you know? You’re not supposed to know. You’re  _Luffy_. It’s supposed to be easy for you, like everything else—"

He stops listening, even though he can tell she has more to say. He flops onto his back and the blue sky slides over his eyes until it’s all he can see. He scowls at it, how empty and plain,  _boring_ , and he snaps back up, his spine straight as the mast. He focuses on the line of the horizon, the way it tilts as Sunny bobs on the currents, and his whole face feels tight and he hates it. He picks at the grass, focusing on the over-brimming sensation inside of him, like the top of his head is going to pop off and everything is going to spill over, if he doesn’t open his mouth and make some noise.

"It’s hard because you guys aren’t rubber like me!" he says, whines. “So you get hurt and you don’t bounce back as fast, and sometimes you get all quiet. And I don’t like that. I don’t like when you guys are hurt, or sad. You’re not supposed to be, ever. I  _hate_ it. I want to make it stop, but I can’t punch sad in the face. There’s nothing to fight, so how am I supposed to help. I don’t know."

He furrows his brow, thinking hard.

"And." He hesitates, grinding his teeth together in that way Makino had always taught him not to do. “And that makes me feel like being in the ocean. You know. Weak. Sinking. That’s when it’s hard to be happy."

He thinks those are the right words. Maybe. He’s tired of thinking. He huffs and sticks his nose up in the air.

"I’m sorry," Nami says.

The bitterness has seeped from Nami, and there’s something softer in its place that Luffy recognizes right away, his heart beating cautious and slow. It feels the same way now as it did when Vivi fisted her hands in the Alabastan sands, when Robin ran away from them to die. It feels like the first time Nami left them at the Baratie. It’s moments like these when Luffy feels perfectly calm, cool instead of peppery hot. Luffy doesn’t know where Nami has to go, but he knows they’re going together. Hasn’t she learned that by now? That she never has to be alone again.

"It’s ok," he says. “Nami, it’s ok."

Nami’s arms are shaking when they wrap around his shoulders, and it feels too much like a goodbye. Luffy wraps his fingers around her wrists, firmly.

"I want you to be happy," Nami whispers, and he nods.

"I know," he says. Don’t leave, he thinks.

"Luffy, you deserve it more than anyone."

He moves her arms off his shoulders, holds her hands in his. “Nah," he says. “Not more."

"Yes,  _more_ ," she insists, vehemently. “You’re going to be king."

"That’s not enough. If you guys aren’t with me, it won’t be enough. And you have to be happy, too. Or else I won’t be."

"Yes," says Nami.

"But." He looks down at their hands and turns them over in his lap. “But Nami, if you’re not sometimes, that’s ok, too. But you have to tell me. Ok? I need to know. And then we can sit like this again, and I can make sure you don’t go off anywhere by yourself."

Nami laughs softly. “Where would I go, Luffy?"

"I don’t know," he says. “Nowhere. Stay."

"It’s not your job to make us happy, you know."

"You’re wrong." He pouts. “It  _is_  my job. I’m your  _captain_."

Nami’s hair skims his shoulder, and he squirms. His hands are white-knuckled around hers. Nami isn’t going anywhere. He knows with iron-clad certainty that she is happier here than she would be anywhere else in the world and it’s because of him. Luffy is  _good_  at his job, even though it’s a hard one, even though sometimes he has to boil his blood and stretch his bones and trade years of his own life for victory, so that he can keep them close. He’s willing; he doesn’t have to think about it. No one else is good enough for his crew.

"Captain," Nami sighs, and she sounds a little cross. “Don’t worry so much about us," she says. “We’re in good hands."

"Good," he says, feeling smug and satisfied. It’s the most difficult job in the world, making people happy. But he can do it because he’s not like everyone else. Nami had said so and Nami is one of the smartest people he knows.

He asks her, “Why do you get sad, Nami?"

"I think too much," Nami says, leaning against him. “I want to make sure I don’t forget."

"But don’t forget us too, ok? Sanji would cry."

"I won’t, Luffy."

The bell rings for lunchtime. Franky shouts he can see the next island—islands, really. It’s an archipelago. Nami stands and pulls him up with her, and Luffy feels like there is sunshine bottled up inside him.


End file.
